Over the past few days I have talked about how weak his design and move selections were in regards to the game. Had the design team at Capcom spent a little more time evolving the new lineup I'm sure their debut would have been met with more enthusiasm. Choosing the right name would have been a good starting place. El Fuerte means "the Strong One" in Spanish. It is an okay name by lucha conventions but not a great one. Lucha libre has a lot of symbolism behind it. A character has to be named or represent something larger than himself. Something like La Fuerza (the Force), Estrella Azul (the Blue Star) or Huracan Blanco (the White Hurricane) would have been better. But why invent a masked Mexican wrestler for the SF universe when one had been created for Capcom 17 years ago?
Tetsuo Hara and Buronson's Hokuto no Ken / Fist of the North Star inspired the development of Street Fighter II. As a professional courtesy Tetsuo was asked to design the characters for Capcom's flagship wrestling game, Muscle Bomber / Saturday Night Slam Masters.
In the games Tetsuo Hara showed his knowledge and understanding of wrestling from around the world. He did not go into the development ignorant of lucha libre, puroresu or pro wrestling. He created archetypical characters from all of the major continents and then stylized their moves. Mr. Hara went so far as to add details like managers, tag teams, valets and a ref to this series.
Mr. Hara also gave these characters two competing promotions, those of the Capcom Wrestling Association and those of the Blood Wrestling Association. He even included a heavyweight champion for the CWA, Victor Ortega, the only wrestler more dominating than Zangief. And also a champion for the BWA, Scorpion / Astro, who was an enmascarado that (interestingly enough) moved like Guy. Tetsuo then connected this game into the Street Fighter mythos by including Mike Haggar from the Final Fight series. The multiple endings for Hugo in Street Fighter III: Giant Attack further cemented the existence of these wrestlers and league to canon.
When it was announced a masked wrestler would be in SF IV many wondered if it would be including one of the enmascarados from Muscle Bomber, namely El Stinger. Why go to the trouble to invent a wrestler, his look, background and moves, when many have already been created by a legendary designer? Not only that but a designer that understood wrestling and also the fantastic moves and abilities required for a Street Fighter game?
Sadly the Muscle Bomber characters were looked over as all the new characters in SF IV were completely original. As a life-long fan of the Capcom universe I felt that Mr. Ono and his team were ignoring the legacy and many wonderful characters that could and should have been in Street Fighter IV. including characters from Final Fight and Rival Schools. The most insulting thing to me was how comedic rather than serious El Fuerte was turning out to be. This was from the Capcom press release:
"As of this moment, Crimson Viper and Abel have been the only new characters announced for Street Fighter IV, but the time has finally come to lift the curtain on yet another new warrior! Judging by his appearance and profile, it looks like he utilizes a pro wrestling style. In fact, his style is none other than Mexico’s famous Lucha Libre brand of wrestling! Will we see that style’s trademark aerial acrobatics at work? We can only hope and wait with baited breath… This fiery fighter is a man who divides his professional life between Lucha Libre wrestling and gourmet cooking. His hot-blooded spirit is enough to give even the mighty Red Cyclone a run for his money! Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for his lackluster cooking skills…"
In an attempt to interject the game with humor or possibly a memorable trait for the character Capcom instead ended up mocking the genre and Mexican culture. None of the classic "world warriors" featured an outside gimmick that worked its way into the game. Almost 20 years since SF II the protagonists were no longer characters but had become icons. Anybody that was to be added had to be more than a typical fighting game character and instead live up to that standard. Ken and Ryu represented the peaks of their form of karate. Chun-Li the peak of kung-fu, Zangief the absolute best in wrestling and Honda the best in sumo. El Fuerte was joining a cast that represented the best of the best, so too should he represent the best in lucha libre. The entire cooking gimmick should never have been brought up because it was not relevant. An enmascarado lives, eats and breaths one thing, wrestling. From the moment he first dons the mask to the day he ultimately loses it. Even while raising a family, the code of the enmascarado is all about wrestling, honor and tradition. There is no time to divide his time over two passions. Granted, some of the older luchadores open restaurants with their winnings, but they never show up to a match with a frying pan. Those wrestlers know to keep their business and their passion separate.
Honestly, a "hot-blooded" Mexican bringing a frying pan into battle? Giving him an alternate costume of a chef? Making El Fuerte say "super dynamic cooking time!" before his match begins? These things weigh heavy with ignorance of the culture and I dare say call up old racial prejudices. Just like Zangief was Vodka Gobalsky originally or that there was a character boozing it up in the background of Russia's SF II level. Making El Fuerte a masked Mexican cartoon character, that longs for the kitchen, stings of the same type of stereotype.
If you think I'm making much ado about nothing, stop and think about the names of his special attacks; the "Quesadilla Bomb" and the "Guacamole Leg Throw." It could be argued that the lucha libre and cooking theme are tied together with the name of his special moves. In my eyes it just emboldens the stereotype and shows how little the team really knows or cares about lucha libre or Mexican culture. What about actual lucha moves with names like the quebradora (backbreaker) or the plancha suicida (suicide press)? They sound far more interesting than plates of food.
The classic names for special moves in SF were very memorable, even if hadoken is literally translated as "punch wave fist," it still carried respect for the martial arts and their practitioners. None of the classic SF II characters ever had move names that implied some ethnic origin. Zangief did not call his piledriver the Vodka Hangover, or Chun-Li feature a Peach Bun Kick or Dhalsim spray Curry Fire. This cuts into the purpose of other SF IV characters as well. Why show Rufus carrying a bucket of popcorn? What is important about a morbidly obese fighter carrying food? Why is it important that El Fuerte carries a frying pan with him? Why now are the names of special attacks and personality quirks forced to coexist?
Japanese arcade game tradition might be part of the problem. In fighting games it is common that the characters yell the name of their special attack as they perform them. Even in introduction animations the characters say something that frames their personality. In Virtua Fighter these things are plainly obvious, yet also comical. El Blaze kisses his biceps and then yells at his opponents to "Start running now!" In Japan this nonsensical English phrase might sound cool but in the USA it is anything but. Someone as small as Rey Mysterio would never taunt his opponents with a catchy phrase, any wrestler or fighter that behaves that way is either being pretentious or absurd. However this convention has been part of Japanese fighters for a while and has even made its way into SF IV's pre-match introductions.
It turns out that pro wrestling in the USA might is a bigger part of the problem of racial gimmicks. It seems the larger the production the larger the use of stereotype. The WWE is the biggest show around and they haven't changed their tune in decades. Japanese wrestlers, even Samoan-playing-Japanese characters like "Yokozuna" perpetuate stereotypes about the ways the Japanese dress and act. The perpetual losers or "jobbers" Kai and Tai were talented and could out-wrestle most of the WWE talent at the time there but were ultimately marginalized and turned into losers by WWE writers for the sake of comedy. The frustration that I have with lucha libre stereotyping in SF IV is similar to what many Japanese fans must feel about the portrayal of Japanese wrestlers on TV. I refer to one of my favorite manga books, Agnes Kamen by Minoru Hiramatsu, as an example.
Agnes Kamen is layered with tons of wrestling details. Readers can appreciate the entertainment value of the manga as much as the commitment to details, some of which show an ugly side of the business that are also very true. Early in the series Mr. Hiramatsu sums up the rude ways in which some foreign wrestlers behave while in Japan. Wrestlers, especially those from the USA are loved by the audience no matter how insulting they are to the Japanese people and their culture. It infurites the main character the way the fans allow themselves to be insulted.
Near the end of the series there is a bitter moral for one of the Japanese wrestlers. In Japan he is a prize talent but in the USA he is just another foreign gimmick character. Once in the US he is quickly stripped of his pride by an unscrupulous manager and forced to dress up like a sumo wrestler with the insulting name of "Devil Tenpura the Yokozuna." The insulting uniform includes a samurai sword and geta (wooden sandals), which obviously do not even belong. Then when he enters the match he is instantly booed by the audience because he is a foreigner. When the match begins he starts fighting like a regular wrestler, he throws hard kicks and catches the audience off guard. They begin booing harder and throwing trash at him. The culture shock and ignorance that he faces comes as quite a surprise.
Then he remembers that he is supposed to fight like a stereotypical sumo, with a wide stance and using only palm thrusts. When he does this the racially bias crowd begins cheering and clapping, clearly laughing at him. He is thrown from the ring easily because he has no experience fighting in the sumo style, the audience begin jeering and pouring their drinks on him. It was one of the saddest moments in the book but also rang very true from what the wrestling business is like in the USA. It does not matter where you come from as a wrestler, even if you were famous and successful in Japan, the ignorant audiences and unscrupulous promoters abroad will only support their own talent and put down everyone else.
The book is not all heavy-handed in its assessment of pro wrestling in the USA. It does an even job covering the inconsistencies with managers and wrestlers in Japan also. At the same time shares the love of the culture with the audience through a series of battles and memorable characters. I applaud Mr. Hiramatsu for making the wrestling fan confront the issue of race, bias and stereotype. He knows that it is not the same in every promotion and there are in fact great wrestlers, fair managers and good promotions to work for. Smaller promotions and fans of those promotions, like Pro Wrestling Guerilla on the west coast or Chikara on the east coast, treat wrestlers from all countries with equal respect. Unfortunately the smaller companies are never shown on television and the global talent never permeate into the mainstream consciousness. The big promotions and "old school mentality" wrestlers that refuse to change are the people that Agnes Kamen warns us about. The biggest of the promoters in the USA are guilty of refusing to change with the times.
Stereotypes have been with and continues to be a part of WWE's branding identity. The Japanese are not the only ones that have to put up with stereotypes either. Irish wrestlers wear green cloverleaf singlets, carry around a shilelagh and are accompanied by leprechauns to the ring. Mexican wrestlers drive low riders (or lawnmowers) and lie, cheat and steal to win. Texans wear large hats and ride in limos with bull horns on the hood.
The WWE has chosen to distance themselves from the sport of wrestling and instead focus on the entertainment value. This only serves to weaken the core of their promotion and wrestling in general. A couple of great essays regarding the way in which the masked wrestler has been exploited and marginalized by the US wrestling promotions appear in the book Mondo Lucha a Go-Go. It does not seem that WWE has any plans to change their approach to "talent development" and as a result this inappropriate racial pandering has come back to bite the lucha fan on the backside. The use and perpetuation of stereotypical images on WWE programming, as seen all around the world, is more than likely the reason why the people at Capcom and DIMPS thought it appropriate to have a Mexican character show up with a frying pan or chef clothing to a match.
In Southern California it is a strong stereotype that all the menial jobs go to Mexicans, especially landscapers, pool cleaners, field workers and day laborers. One stereotype is that the majority of a kitchen staff are Mexican because the restaurant owner will exploit undocumented workers for cheap labor. I'm not certain if Capcom of Japan realizes the racial issues that they raise by making El Fuerte a chef, gourmet or not. If they were aware I'd rather that they rise above the stereotype, to oblige themselves to lucha libre culture without resorting to gimmicks. To tap into their own legacy of Muscle Bomber, to present the gaming audience an awesome enmascarado even if pro wrestling in the USA does not return the favor. This would raise the status of Capcom to the Spanish-speaking community as well as the audience that grew up playing classic games like Final Fight, Muscle Bomber and Rival Schools. It would harken back to the true legacy of Street Fighter II. The legacy that says that only the best of the best are competing, the gimmicks all stay at home. If El Fuerte is in the game then he has to be the absolute best enmascarado in the Street Fighter universe.
Is El Fuerte the best enmascarado in the Street Fighter universe? Come back tomorrow for my response and as always, please leave a comment.
